The ongoing Amazon-Google feud might cause the e-commerce giant to retaliate by launching its own video-hosting platform.
According to documents filed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) by Amazon suggest that the company might have plans to launch a service it called ‘Amazontube’ that would serve as a rival to YouTube — currently the largest and most well-known video hosting service on the planet.
What’s especially interesting is that Amazon filed its Amazontube documents on December 5th, 2017 — the same day that Google threatened to pull YouTube off of all Amazon devices.
Among the laundry list of features Amazon suggests it service will offer are “software and a mobile software application for transmitting, accessing, receiving, uploading, downloading, encoding, decoding, streaming, broadcasting, sharing, displaying, formatting, manipulating…electronic works, namely photos, videos, text, data, images, documents, content…”
The Amazon-Google feud began when the e-commerce giant refused to stock certain Google-made products, like the Chromecast. The feud escalated when Google pulled YouTube from the Amazon Echo Show; in retaliation, Amazon stopped selling certain Nest products.
Google then responded by threatening to pull YouTube from all Amazon devices — including those in Canada. A few days later, Amazon announced that it would stock Google products, including the Chromecast.
As such, it’s unclear if Amazon will move forward with its plans to build its own video-hosting service, or if the patent filing was simply a calculated move on Amazon’s part — of if it signals that the e-commerce giant isn’t interested in being strong-armed into stocking its competitors’ products.
